What computer and monitor setup do u have for Post Production?

[RLPhoto]

I use a Asus 19" monitor and an ACER 23" monitor I got from Newegg. They're pretty good as long as you calibrate them. I use the Spyder 3 elite.

IPS is the best, but eh, I get great results from what I have. If you consider most people's will not have an IPS monitor to even view your images at there best, Why bother?

This is an excellent point and often overlooked. Not to belittle the importance of monitor calibration, but it is important to remember what your final output is going to be.

Like most things, color accuracy is a "garbage in, garbage out" situation, so you do want to start with the most accurate rendition you can, but frankly I agree with RL that there is no point in obsessing over it unless you are working in a professional environment that demands absolute color accuracy (product photos for advertising for example)

If your images are going to be viewed primarily on the web you can't very well go around the world and adjust everyone's monitor before they go to your website.

If your final product is printed with a CMYK process be prepared for colors that are much different than what you see on your screen. You will need to adjust your images accordingly and if color accuracy is critical, you might want to consider letting a professional color house do the final adjustments. 

BTW, I've been know to go around Best Buy and Apple stores and pull up my website on every device I can find, just to see how it looks under different environments. Particularly important for websites. Some of the clerks get a bit annoyed, but most are good-natured about it.

If you can make a photo look stunning on a calibrated crap monitor, The more awesome it will be one a better one. 

[K-amps]

I have an i7-2500k, 8GB RAM, a pair of Asus VH242H displays, an i1 Display Pro calibrator, and a Wacom tablet.  It is fine for looking at photos but editing a 25MB .dng with lots of brushstrokes in LR4.1 can run it into the ground. 

A faster processor and 12 or 16GB of RAM would be a better idea, as would one good monitor; The panels I have are remarkably inconsistent for brightness and color temperature.

The calibrator and the tablet are swell once you figure them out, applying adjustment brushes is much easier with the tablet.

The only other thing I'd change on this setup would be a faster drive array.  I have for storing photos a RAID5 array of older mechanical drives on a proper 3Ware card but a bundle of SSDs would sure give it a kick in the pants.  Win7 runs on its own Velociraptor, which is enough.

Jim

On the LR 4.1 issue.

I have a i7-950 Quadcore clocked to 4.02Ghz each core.

24GB RAM

Samsung 830 series 6Gbs SSD (256GB)

GTX 460 series Graphics...

System is not a slouch by any means... Yet LR 4.1 exhibits sloth like behaviour.

I read somewhere that if you goto lightroom.exe in Task manager and right click on it and set affinity to the "even" number core only (the odd numbers are Hyper threads not physical cores) then LR 4.1 runs a bit better.

I would tend to agree... but it is still slower than LR 3.6. Adobe needs to fix this... Shame on them.

PS: At no time does my RAM usage exceed 8-10 GB while LR is slothing away...

[RLPhoto]

Lolz, your machines are in a whole different league than my machine. Yet, you have these performance issues...

E6600 C2D - OC'ed to 2.93ghz
4GB of 667Mhz RAM
8800 Nvidia GTS 640MB G-card.
Standard JBOD setup
Dual monitors.
Win 7 pro.

My machine is getting older but It doesn't sweat over the 22mp 5D3 files a bit, Does it take alittle longer than LR3? It doesn't feel like it to me.

It surprises me to hear such systems having problems with LR4.

[K-amps]

Lolz, your machines are in a whole different league than my machine. Yet, you have these performance issues...

E6600 C2D - OC'ed to 2.93ghz
4GB of 667Mhz RAM
8800 Nvidia GTS 640MB G-card.
Standard JBOD setup
Dual monitors.
Win 7 pro.

My machine is getting older but It doesn't sweat over the 22mp 5D3 files a bit, Does it take alittle longer than LR3? It doesn't feel like it to me.

It surprises me to hear such systems having problems with LR4.

Invest in a Samsung 830 series SSD and see it jump back to life!      (but avoid LR 4 or 4.1) 

[RLPhoto]

Lolz, your machines are in a whole different league than my machine. Yet, you have these performance issues...

E6600 C2D - OC'ed to 2.93ghz
4GB of 667Mhz RAM
8800 Nvidia GTS 640MB G-card.
Standard JBOD setup
Dual monitors.
Win 7 pro.

My machine is getting older but It doesn't sweat over the 22mp 5D3 files a bit, Does it take alittle longer than LR3? It doesn't feel like it to me.

It surprises me to hear such systems having problems with LR4.

Invest in a Samsung 830 series SSD and see it jump back to life!      (but avoid LR 4 or 4.1) 

I'm using LR4.1 :|

[K-amps]

Does your E6600 hyperthread? if not, you won't see a performance hit as the HT processors do . 

[Jim Saunders]

*snip*

My machine is getting older but It doesn't sweat over the 22mp 5D3 files a bit, Does it take alittle longer than LR3? It doesn't feel like it to me.

It surprises me to hear such systems having problems with LR4.

Having used both LR4 is a lot slower to respond than 3.6; 4.1 helped and hopefully 4.3 does also.  4.2 didn't do much besides add a few new cameras.

Jim

[KKCFamilyman]

I do IT so I can handle all the specs for hardware. I actually plan on getting the new corsair neutron gtx ssd and the nvidia quadro 4000 graphics card since it is really meant for this work. I do not do gaming. Also I was hoping for more monitor models and calibration equipment more than anything. Really in my opinion that is the most important to me now. That the monitor will cover the full RGB Color Gamut. Hold Calibrations. Just do not want to spend $1k + for a monitor.

[wsmith96]

I use an HP Z400 workstation with an HP 2335 23" S-IPS flat panel monitor.  Specs are Xeon w3520, 6G ram, OS Drive 7200 RPM, scratch drive 7200 RPM, memory card reader, other usual stuff. I found that you could get these at a pretty reasonable price from the HP business outlet (which isn't the same place as the hpshopping outlet).  Here is the link if anyone is interested:  http://h71016.www7.hp.com/html/hpremarketing/daily.asp 

I also use a Spyder monitor and printer calibration system, canon printers, Adobe photoshop elements, Corel PSPX4 and Aftershot pro.   I'm just now learning aftershot pro, and have never tried lightroom so I can't compare yet.  The system works for me and can crunch anything I throw at it.   Oh, the PC didn't come with a quadro card so I'm using a NVIDIA GTX460.  Ideally I would have a Quadro 2000 or 4000.

[cayenne]

I have a macbook pro (late 2011) with 16 GB ram, 2.4 GHz quad-core Core i7, 15" high resolution screen...

I have this hooked up to a Dell U27 Ultrasharp Monitor 27" (2560 x 1440) IPS , factory-tuned AdobeRGB and sRGB modes. running over a display port cable hooked to the Thunderbolt connection of the macbook.

I am trying to find a way to run dual monitors off my macbook...but this might not be possible, unless I get a couple of the Apple branded 27" thunderbolt displays to replace the Dell U2711. The apple and dell monitors share the same IPS screen...same manufacturer.

cayenne

[brianleighty]

I have a macbook pro (late 2011) with 16 GB ram, 2.4 GHz quad-core Core i7, 15" high resolution screen...

I have this hooked up to a Dell U27 Ultrasharp Monitor 27" (2560 x 1440) IPS , factory-tuned AdobeRGB and sRGB modes. running over a display port cable hooked to the Thunderbolt connection of the macbook.

I am trying to find a way to run dual monitors off my macbook...but this might not be possible, unless I get a couple of the Apple branded 27" thunderbolt displays to replace the Dell U2711. The apple and dell monitors share the same IPS screen...same manufacturer.

cayenne

Yeah that's one thing that stinks about the macbook pro. It has a fast enough CPU but being limited to only one external monitor unless it's an Apple one stinks. I'm waiting for the new iMac to come out instead.

[dadohead]

Mac Pro 8-core 3.2 (5400)
32 Gigs RAM
3TB Black Caviar boot
3TB Samsung array (3x1)
ATI 5870 Video Card
27" Apple Cinema (2560x1440)
24" Apple Cinema (1920x1200)
Wacom tablet
i1Pro II Spectro

[RLPhoto]

Mac Pro 8-core 3.2 (5400)
32 Gigs RAM
3TB Black Caviar boot
3TB Samsung array (3x1)
ATI 5870 Video Card
27" Apple Cinema (2560x1440)
24" Apple Cinema (1920x1200)
Wacom tablet
i1Pro II Spectro

Whewww. How much did that set you back? 

[K-amps]

Mac Pro 8-core 3.2 (5400)
32 Gigs RAM
3TB Black Caviar boot
3TB Samsung array (3x1)
ATI 5870 Video Card
27" Apple Cinema (2560x1440)
24" Apple Cinema (1920x1200)
Wacom tablet
i1Pro II Spectro

If this is true... then I am willing to wager, you probably date a supermodel too... 

[Razor2012]

I have the Dell Ultrasharp 30" display also, and my PC is about 3-4 years old with a 8800GTX in it.  I just picked up a Macbook Pro w Retina (Intel i7 w 16 gigs of ram and 512 SSD) and want to get Photoshop loaded on there.  That screen is awesome.